What are the legal obligations to rent out your property as a touristic furnished rental in big cities?

The ALUR law states that a land-use change authorization is now necessary to rent out a furnished accommodation for short stays except if the main residence of the leaser in cities of more than 200 000 inhabitants. We must focus on these new dispositions.

The land-use change authorization is mandatory to rent out a furnished accommodation for tourists

This authorization is obligatory to convert the housing premises into premises to be put to another use (office, business, warehouse, etc.) in towns whose population exceed 200 000 inhabitants and in the departments of the Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and of the Val-de-Marne. This measure aims to preserve the number of accommodations in big urban centers.
The ALUR law has completed the article L 631-7 of the french construction and housing code to specify that the land-use change authorization is compulsory to let out furnished accommodation repeatedly for short stays to occasional customers, that is not their main house.
The “short period” and “repetition” notions have not been defined yet. They may be defined by city councils or shall be left up to the judge.

Towns can encourage touristic furnished rental

Town councils can decide to implement a temporary scheme of authorization for land-use change to enable landlords as natural persons to rent out their furnished accommodations to occasional customers for short period.
The deliberation will fix the terms of the issue of this temporary authorization by the mayor of the municipality in which the housing is located . In Paris, Marseille and Lyon, those terms will be fixed by the arrondissement mayor. It will also determine the criteria of this temporary authorization, which can concern:

The duration of the rental contracts

The physical characteristics of the property

The location of the property

It is specified that the criteria can be modified according to the number of authorizations delivered to one owner.

No authorization is needed for renting your furnished main residence

When the furnished housing is the tenant’s main residence, that is that he is settled there at least 8 months a year, there is no need for a use change authorization to rent it out for tourism purposes , nor any statement to the Town Council in application of the article D324-1-1 of the Tourism Code.